Harnessing local underused crops to improve household nutrition and income opportunities in Vietnam: case of Hoa vang sticky rice in Red river delta

The project ‘Coalition to Diversify Income through Underused Crops’ (CoDI) operates in Vietnam and India since 2008. The project supports local communities in the production, processing and marketing of neglected crops – local grains, fruits and vegetables. Those varieties have close relation with local territory. An evaluation of the situation of previous activities in India and Vietnam showed that the key weaknesses were: • Demonstrations were not enough and too far away and too far apart. • Post-harvest handling and processing methods suggested were too complicated. • No financial support was provided. • Not enough training courses were offered and access to information was limited. The main question was how to help farmers to produce indigenous species on a larger scale in a localized area for a marketing purpose. The CoDI project has chosen the Innovation System Approach to realize action-research for development with four main activities, owned and managed by the communities: 1. Food Processing Parks (FPPs), to which people are coming for training, information and business development services, processing, grading and other post-harvest activities and for wider support on available market opportunities, credit advice and links to other value chain actors at local, national and international levels. 2. Village Crop Fairs, during which local fruits and plants are being evaluated and the best ones selected by the communities. 3. Community Germplasm Orchards (nurseries), which then receive planting material from the selected lines for further propagation and which also serve as training grounds for plant propagation and nursery management skills. 4. Annual Knowledge Fairs, to communicate and discuss the experience with wider stakeholders from the public and private sector. The coalition builds upon in-depth experience of each of the partners in Vietnam on making markets work for the poor by facilitating links between rural cooperatives and urban quality distribution, focusing on women farmers who form the majority of vegetable and traditional crops producers, in an increasing urban environment where many men move to the towns for off-farm employment.